Coffee shop operation | opening a coffee shop is just a "seemingly" romantic thing

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In the past, compared with other restaurants, cafes were relatively professional, because it was not easy to obtain information, most of them adopted master-apprentice system, and there was a certain threshold for entering this field, but in recent years, because of the development of information in online media, anyone who is interested in coffee can open a coffee shop, whether it is self-study or hiring a manager to run it, or inviting a barista to make coffee. Opening a coffee shop has become a choice for ordinary people to start their own business only with capital within a short period of time, but as a result of such vigorous development, the growth rate of Chinese coffee shops has exceeded that of the coffee consumption market in recent years. The distribution of coffee shops is gradually saturated, which makes the operation of coffee shops in a state of fierce competition.

In such cases, people who want to start a business and open a store may need to think about the following questions:

1 what do you need to think about if you want to open a cafe?

Coffee shop owners often have a misconception: they think that they can open a coffee shop only if they have good coffee brewing skills, but ignore the importance of 'running' coffee shops. This makes it easy to open a shop and close down quickly. To know that coffee and management are both professional knowledge, you may be able to make a good cup of coffee but it is difficult to run a coffee shop. You always wonder why someone who doesn't understand coffee can run a coffee shop well. Because the difference is that they understand business management, hire good baristas and have a sound concept of brand management. Therefore, this is also the most important question for coffee people to think about: not only on the technical level, there are many factors that affect a cafe, a complete business model is the key to long-term operation.

In addition, although the investment of the cafe is small and the threshold for entry is low, relatively speaking, if you want to take the civilian route and become an extension of customers' daily life, the basic consumption amount is not high, and the recovery cost is slower than that of the restaurant. Therefore, the operator's concept of money has a great impact on a shop, especially for independent small shops. Often small shop owners only make coffee at the beginning, for this industry. With the entrepreneurial life has a great imagination, it is possible to start with too much unnecessary equipment and decoration, there is also a kind of investment mistake: originally wanted to focus on the hand shop, but invested a lot of money in the Italian coffee machine, or the hand shop, thinking that it is cheaper to bake beans yourself? And decided to buy a bean dryer. But to enter the self-baking mode, in addition to needing a bean dryer and dealing with subsequent inventory, just the idea of 'baking your own beans' may require an additional investment of more than NT $100,000. In addition, as little as 5 kg of raw beans, as many as 50 kg, 60 kg, if you cannot grasp the sales channel, even if the profit is very high, it will become a sluggish asset.

For cafes to operate for a long time, a complete business model is the key.

2 what is the difference between the operators of chain cafes and independent cafes?

The model of the chain store is that the headquarters sets the standards for the store to implement, but also because it is the maker rather than the executor, in order to avoid problems, it is necessary to develop the SOP process, which is also the biggest difference between the chain system and independent cafes. To clearly recognize that opening a coffee shop and brewing coffee are two different things, this is a business, it is often said that opening a coffee shop is very romantic, but romance should only be the appearance and atmosphere presented. It's like a romantic performance on the stage, but there are endless exercises off the stage, and it's the same with opening a coffee shop? In addition to the cooking technology, the operation and management of other stores need more consideration.

After a minute on the stage and ten years of hard work off the stage, opening a cafe is just a "seemingly" romantic thing, and a lifetime of work requires more careful thinking.

3 how to change the "boss halo" of independent cafes into "shop halo"?

Many independent shops have a "star aura". Customers often come to patronize the store's star baristas, and when the operator has a star aura, when the business of the store expands, they will be separated and unable to carry out their own future planning. at this time, employees should be allowed to join the market at the right time to train other stars in the store, just like Michelin 3-star Hou Buxiong in France. ATELIER de Jo ë l Robuchon) believes that even if he is not in the store, the business in the store will not be affected, so when you want your store to operate for a long time, it is very important to establish your own brand. It is suggested that when the independent shop is stable, we can start to implement the transfer from "boss halo" to "shop halo" to prepare for the continuous operation of the store.

Self-baking cafes are popular, but is it suitable for everyone to bake their own beans?

Basically, if it is a coffee shop with good business, it will not be a person who cooks and bakes beans alone. The problem with an one-person self-baking shop is that you can do both because the operation is not ideal. It is not necessarily because there is something wrong with the quality of the coffee. It is also possible that you do not have time to think about operation, sales, and so on.

For those who want to open a self-baking shop, I would like to ask you a question first: you should have a factory before a market? Or is there a market before there is a factory? I believe that for independent shops with limited capital, the latter is a better choice. First determine the source of customers, then start the research, and then through the feedback of the customers in the store, the final decision is to determine the quantity of beans. As mentioned earlier, opening a coffee shop is only a "seemingly" romantic thing, and it is the business under the table that needs to be carefully considered, especially the matter of baked beans, which can form dull assets accidentally and need to be treated carefully.

First there is a market and then there is a factory, so that we can make steady progress step by step.

5 what is the importance of design to cafes? How should it be designed?

Design is like a part of marketing packaging for a cafe. Design will definitely bring good business, especially in a modern, highly profitable commercial space that emphasizes the atmosphere and attaches importance to the overall presentation, which requires not only good goods, but also attractive space and comfortable moving lines, so that consumers are willing to stay, consume, return and share, all this is not only the presentation of "beauty". What's more, we should consider the business model on top of "design", so that good commercial space design can bring good business. However, to avoid over-design is also what the editor wants to remind you. Many people obviously spend more than half of their capital on hardware decoration, but they may decide to take it away or may need to be relocated a year later, and so on. These hard fittings may be wasted. We can discuss "take-away decoration" with designers to let the aesthetics of professional designers enter the space, but it will not cause unnecessary waste.

Coffee shops can't always rely on "star aura".

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